A pitiful ghost of what was
Present 6th Year
Sirius was lying on his back when the dorm door slammed open like someone had kicked the hinges off.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t need to. He could already hear the fury in the way James’s boots hit the stone, cloak still half-on, breath ragged.
“Oh, look who’s not fucking dead,” James spat.
Hadn’t Sirius told Moony? James wouldn’t buy the half-arsed excuse.
He sighed. One arm over his eyes, shirt halfway open, the other hand lazily tossing a match between his fingers. “Was touch and go there for a minute.”
James kicked the leg of his bed hard enough to shake it. “Where the fuck were you?”
Sirius let the match fall. “Out.”
“Out?” James echoed, jaw tight. “Let me give you a refresher, you vanished into the Forbidden Forest, Black. Like some feral fucking urban legend.”
Sirius glanced over, unimpressed. “Big words for someone who still can’t spell ‘acquaintance.’”
James’s laugh was venom. “You think this is a joke?”
“No. You losing your shit is the joke.”
“You missed the match!” James roared. “You missed the match, and warmups, and the lied about the detention Slughorn assigned you for that business with Snape, and when I asked Lily what the hell happened, she looked like she’d swallowed a fucking grenade.”
Sirius sat up, slow, deliberate. “So what, you came up here to beat it out of me?”
“No. I came up here to figure out if the person I called my brother still exists.”
Something in the room shifted.
Sirius’s smirk twitched, then collapsed. “That’s low.”
“So tell me what hell is going on”
Sirius stood. One smooth, unbothered motion—bare feet on cold stone, cigarette already between his lips. “I didn’t know I needed to file a report every time I took a walk.”
James’s fist clenched. “You scared me.”
There it was. Slipped out before he could snatch it back.
Sirius didn’t say anything. Just stood there in that thin veil of smoke, looking at him like he was trying to find the version of James he knew.
“You scared me,” James said again, quieter. “And you know what, that-that’s fine, but you owe me this Sirius”
“James, we haven’t been the same for a second now, I didn’t ask you to care.”
James stepped in close, toe to toe. “That’s the thing about brothers, Sirius. You don’t ask. We just do.”
For one second, neither of them breathed.
Then Sirius exhaled, slow. The cigarette flared. “Yeah. Well. Maybe you shouldn’t.”
James’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Don’t do that. Don’t push me out like I haven’t been the one in the ditch with you every time you crawl in.”
“I didn’t crawl in,” Sirius said. “I walked. Willingly.”
“Then you’re dumber than I thought.”
“Then stop wasting your breath.”
James’s jaw clicked. “You know what pisses me off the most? Not that you fucked off. Not that you lied. It’s that you looked at me—me—and decided I didn’t get to know why.”
Sirius blinked.
It hit him, that last part. Like a fist through armor.
James I’m sorry, for this, for what I’ve been doing, I’m sorry I can’t look you in the eye anymore, because the shit I’ve done it would change everything. And I can’t let go of the part of you that doesn’t know. But I can’t look at you, I can’t. He wants to scream out.
Instead
He looked down, cigarette ash crumbling between his fingers. “Didn’t want you to look at me different.”
James stepped back, like that hurt worse than the shove.
“I’ve known you since we were eleven,” he said. “I’ve seen you charm your way out of almost bloody everything. But don’t think for a second I’ll stick around while you lie to my face.”
Sirius didn’t move.
Didn’t say sorry.
Didn’t say don’t go.
Because that wasn’t how they worked.
“You wanna know what happened in the forest?” Sirius said finally. Voice low. Raw like gravel in the throat. “I followed someone. Thought they were in trouble. They looked—fucked, actually. Limping. I thought it was…” He trailed off. Shrugged. “Didn’t know who, exactly. Just that something was wrong.”
James didn’t say anything. Just listened. Still tight around the eyes.
Sirius kept going. “Every time I got close, they were gone. And the deeper I went, the more I felt like—I dunno. Like I wasn’t gonna come back. Not in one piece.”
“You’re sure it was a person?”
“Yeah.” A pause. “But I dunno. Could’ve been an illusion. Trap. I didn’t think.”
James exhaled hard. Cleaned his glasses with the hem of his cloak. “What time?”
Sirius furrowed his brow. “What?”
“What time did you go in?”
“Just before seven. I was outside the pitch, smoking by the lake. Had a joint in one hand, boots half-laced, about to head in—then I saw them. Wand tucked under their arm. Walking stiff. Wrong.”
James went quiet. That particular kind of quiet that meant his brain was clocking into gear.
“James we know these woods, we’ve ran through them with Moony hundreds of times”
“And yet I was lost.”
Sirius could see the gears turning. Click, click, click.
This was the funny thing about them.
They could go from nearly throwing fists to solving mysteries without missing a beat. No apology necessary. No transition required.
It made Sirius miss his best mate.
“Oi,” James muttered, turning toward Siruis’ trunk. “The Map.”
He hauled it out in seconds, spreading it open across the nearest bed. Tap. I solemnly swear that I am up to no good.
The parchment flooded with ink.
James scanned it, muttering under his breath. “Match started at 7:15… you vanished off the map at 7:03. Literally blinked. Like you just—disappeared.”
“I told you,” Sirius said, watching the little footprints skitter across the paper. “Whatever it was, it wasn’t normal.”
James tapped again, looking for past trails. “No one else followed you in, till Remus and Lily’s little hunt”
Sirius lit another cigarette. “Someone led me.”
James looked up. “Or something wanted you to follow.”
Sirius didn’t flinch.
Didn’t smile.
Didn’t say I know.
Because that, too, wasn’t how they worked.